“Good morning, forest! Good morning, beautiful sky! Good morning, sunshine! I feel like flying high into the Rockies. Who wouldn’t? Maybe I’ll find Matthew today.”
She stood perfectly balanced on the wooden railing of the deck of the house where she was hiding. She was still wearing the sleeveless white cotton tube she had escaped in, and the same ballet slippers. She was edgy with excitement. It was such a perfect day for flying.
Matthew? Matthew? Where the heck are you? Come fly with me? Come on down, Matthew. Please don’t be dead.
The wind was blowing noisily against the steep hill behind the house and she could feel the cool updraft frisking her legs. She raised her wings, just a little. Testing, one, two, three, four.
She wanted to check to see how much pain there was, whether or not she could tolerate it; but she already knew she was feeling pretty good. She wasn’t hurt too bad. She’d live, at least for the moment.
Air buffeted against her feathers, making a soft drumming sound, the gentlest timpani. Her heartbeat accelerated in anticipation.
Max took a deep, sweet breath of the mountain air, of wildflowers, of pine needles, and before she could chicken out, she pushed off!
She was more prepared for the vertigo this time and for the sensation of her stomach actually rising up in her chest. Instinct took over. She beat her wings hard against the air. Flapping counters gravity, she told herself. She had learned all about flying from Mrs. Beattie at the School. She just wasn’t allowed to fly. Flying was forbidden.
As her upper arms swung out, her shoulder bones rotated easily and naturally in their sockets. The elbow joints automatically opened, her wrists extended, and her feathers spread.
She found herself rising without having to do another thing! It was unbelievably quiet up here. She was riding on the air, and it was a hundred times easier than swimming. It was easier than walking.
Max rose in a thermal vortex. The air seemed alive, pushing her upward from below. She knew a little about thermal vortexes. She’d read everything she could at the School, and she retained most of what she read. In School terms, she was supposed to be a genius. So was Matthew, of course. So where the heck was he?
She could hear birds chirping, but didn’t see many of them yet. She circled effortlessly as she continued to climb. Flying was the best thing. Definitely. No wonder it had been forbidden for her and Matthew.
Other people would have to be on drugs to experience anything even close to this. Each one of her feathers was wired directly into her nervous system, so that her brain knew the exact alignment.
When she was so high that she could blot out the house with a fingertip, she encountered another small miracle.
The hill behind the house was connected to other hills, making a ridge that stretched to the ends of her sight line. The wind blowing into the ridge had nowhere to go but up, so it formed a standing wave of air along the entire hilly crest.
Max embraced the air with her open wings, and she caught the wave. The breeze whipped her long blond hair behind her. Her hair was a stream in the wind.
Then the earth was sliding along silently beneath her. Except for the whisper of air through her feathers, it was completely quiet up here. She soared as if exempt from the laws of gravity. And she saw others taking advantage of the same airflow.
A red-tailed hawk, a pair of vultures, and smaller crows floated as effortlessly as she did. The hawk circled her, watched her. She stared back at its dark, hard eyes.
“Chill out,” she said to the bird.
She skimmed the treetops, then dropped beneath them, and finally dipped into the dark green shadows of the woods. She lightly brushed the edges of the trees with her wingtips.
She whipped tight figure eights through the trees.
What a ride! She felt incredibly connected to the natural world, to the rest of the universe.
She was made for this!
Suddenly she slowed herself. The ground was rushing at her. She landed too fast, too hard. Pain mainlined through her body and into the hurt shoulder. She stared straight ahead and couldn’t believe what she saw.
It was that woman again.
She was a few yards up ahead.
Chapter 25
DAMN YOU, whoever did this. Damn you to hell!” I cursed loudly, and my voice resounded with the echo.
I reached down and hauled a horrifying leghold trap out from under a mat of wet and muddy leaves in the gully. Fortunately, it hadn’t been tripped by some poor animal.
Suddenly, I heard something big moving in the woods. The noise was close. Definitely a large animal. Or maybe the pitiful trapper himself?
I froze with the trap dangling from my hands. I turned slowly.
“OhmygoodGod,” I whispered under my breath. The bird-girl was twenty paces away. It was the same young girl. She was looking at me, staring hard. What I was seeing wasn’t possible. But there she was. And she definitely had wings.
Her face, and probably the longish blond hair, reminded me of Jessica Dubroff, the seven-year-old pilot who had crashed her plane and died tragically a few years back. The young girl standing before me brimmed with the same kind of spirit and spunk. It was in her eyes. She seemed a normal enough girl—except for the plumage, the beautiful wings.
I was shaking badly. My legs were as wobbly as the ones on my old kitchen table. This isn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. Get control of yourself right now. Take a deep breath.
The girl stopped walking through the woods. Her white dress, a smock really, was torn and badly soiled. Her blond hair was tangled and snarled.
She was very still, watching me. Like a hawk, so to speak. Had I found her, or was it the other way around? Was she tracking me?
I was dead sober this time. It was broad daylight.
This was real. She was as real as I was—sort of. And she was less than thirty yards away from me.
For a long, silent moment we stared at each other. The clearest green eyes looked out at me from her face. The green of her eyes was edged with yellow. Her eyes showed no fear, but her body language was cautious.
“Hi,” I said softly. “Don’t go. Please.”
I saw her eyes lower a notch to my hands.
I still gripped the animal trap. Ugly metal teeth and jaws attached to a rusty chain. The apparatus looked nasty, meant to maim.
Suddenly the girl looked frightened, very afraid. She turned, and began to move away in a hurry.
She must have thought the trap belonged to me! No wonder she looked so horrified.
“It’s not mine,” I called after her. “Wait. Please.”
I dropped the wretched trap and scrambled up a steep gully after her. She was moving fast. I saw a flash of white far ahead of me.
Where in the name of God had she come from? Some kind of mind-boggling birth defect up here in the mountains? An experiment of some kind? Things always go awry.
The ground seemed to be fighting me as I climbed. Shale slid off underfoot and clattered down into the gully. I told myself not to run. She would think I was in pursuit. But I ran, anyway. I couldn’t lose her.
“I won’t hurt you,” I shouted. “I’m a vet, a doctor.”
To my surprise, the young girl sped up. Why? Because I’d told her I was a doctor? I followed as quickly as I could through the deep, thick woods, but I soon realized that I’d lost her.
I felt sick, totally defeated. I’d had two great chances to make contact. What if I never saw her again? Had anyone else seen her around here?
Then I heard the sharp sound of cracking wood.
It came from straight above me.
I looked up.
The girl was poised on a sturdy branch of a tall oak. I was certain that she was no more than eleven or twelve. She was watching me again. Had she picked me out for some reason? And then, why me? I kept thinking of David and I didn’t know why. What could possibly connect David to this young girl?
“Please. Don’t run away. I won’t hurt
you. That animal trap wasn’t mine—I was clearing it away. I hate it, too. My name is Frannie. What’s your name?”
She didn’t answer and I wondered if she could speak, or how she spoke. Instead, she spread her magnificent wings; they were like eagle wings or perhaps, angel wings.
Suddenly, she leaped from the high branch. It was incredible. She looked like a high diver, the best I’d ever seen, or ever would see.
Then right before my eyes, she flew.
She actually flew like a bird. No, she flew as a young girl might fly, or a woman or a man, if people were meant to fly. She soared through the air.
And that changed the course of my life forever.
Chapter 26
NINE-YEAR-OLD MATTHEW couldn’t stop himself from quivering like a damn Slinky toy on a steep flight of cold, stone stairs, headed down to a dungeon. He hadn’t been able to stop shivering since he and Max left the School and they had separated for safety’s sake.
Max, go right.
Matthew, go left.
It’s our best chance. Go, go!
We’ll meet again someday.
He wondered if he would ever see his big sister again, though. He couldn’t imagine not seeing Max, and he almost couldn’t bear that he hadn’t seen her in two whole days.
They had never been apart for more than a few hours before. Being separated was how they were punished at the School, and it was the absolute hairy armpits for both of them. Uncle Thomas knew that, the cunning traitor. He had pretended to be their friend, but he was the one out here looking for them now. He was the one who would put them to sleep.
Matthew had to get his mind somewhere else for the moment. He couldn’t lie here in this dark, slimy hiding place and think about missing Max. The trouble was, the worst thing, there was nothing else in his past that he missed. Oh, maybe the rec room TV, but not too much. Maybe the bad food at the School, but that was only because he was freaking starving now. Maybe Mrs. Beattie, but she was dead. Probably murdered.
He tried to tell himself a joke, a dumb riddle:How did a fool and his money get together in the first place? He didn’t laugh, not today, not out here in the dark cold with his face pressed down in the crummy old dirt.
He and Max had promised they would meet somehow, somewhere, and that was what kept him going. Man, he missed Max’s smile. He even missed her little motormouth that never stopped flapping.
Matthew cocked his head and listened closely. He heard a noise nearby, down close to the ground. Rustling leaves? Footfall?
Just the wind whistling in the trees. Nothing else. He breathed a sigh of relief. And then—
“Matthew the Great? Come on out, kiddo. Come out of there. I know you’re close. I’ve got footprints. I’ve got a bead on you, son. Is your lovely sister with you?”
It was Uncle Thomas, and now Matthew really began to shake. He felt sick to his stomach and he couldn’t breathe very well and he thought he might die of a heart attack at nine years old.
“You’ve always been a good boy. We both know that, kiddo. Come out by yourself and I’ll go easy on you. Pinkie swear, I will.”
He had always been good, obedient. Matthew did know that. He hated that Uncle Prick Thomas said “pinkie swear.” That was something between Max and him, nobody else. They would join pinkies and make a promise to each other, “pinkie swear” on it. Just Max and him.
He was busted now, though. No way out. The boy rose up on his wobbly legs. Man, he was shivering all over: legs, arms, the muscles of his face, even his butt. He was filthy, too, smelled awful, and it embarrassed him.
He peeked out of the hiding place.
There was Uncle Thomas. Several of his henchmen were with him. Man, he wanted to trust them. He even kind of wanted to go home.
“Ah, there you are, Matthew. There you are,” Uncle Thomas said. He sounded nice enough, sounded like a friend.
Uncle Thomas watched the stunning blond boy walk slowly forward. Matthew was good-looking, just like his sister. His wings were off-white, with silver and navy blue markings. An extraordinary specimen.
Matthew loved to tell jokes, and he told one now. He told jokes when he was nervous or scared. “If you shoot a mime,” he said, “should you use a silencer? Hardee-har-har.”
Uncle Thomas fired once. No silencer was necessary. Matthew, the good boy, flopped down hard on the forest floor.
Book Two
TINKERBELL LIVES
Chapter 27
HARDING THOMAS sat on the ground beside nine-year-old Matthew. He spoke softly, even tenderly. “I’m sorry I had to use a stun gun on you. You know that I love you and Max.”
Matthew’s eyes were red-rimmed and still tearing. It was hard not to feel pity for the small boy, but Thomas knew this wasn’t a time for sentimentality. He had a job to do.
“I don’t believe what you say anymore,” Matthew whispered.
“You used to believe me, Matthew. We were friends. I’m here now because I’m your friend. There was talk of putting you to sleep. I disagreed. I couldn’t do that to you, son. Now I want you to help me find Max. You have to help me save her.”
Matthew spoke so softly it was difficult to hear him. “What do I do? How can I save my sister?”
Thomas nodded approval and he finally smiled at the boy. “I want you to fly, and then call out for Max. You’re the only one who can save Max.”
He showed something—it looked like a length of fishing line, a large spool.
“Listen to me closely,” he said, “this clear line is impossible to break. They use it to catch thousand-pound tuna in the Pacific. I’m giving you a hundred yards of line to run with. You follow me?”
“Yes, Uncle Thomas.”
“You are a good boy, and you’re helping me save Max. Only you can save her now. Don’t forget that.”
Uncle Thomas attached the tether to a khaki vest around Matthew’s chest and waist. The other end was strung around a thick oak that sat high on the side of the mountain. This was as good as it was going to get. The trap for Max was set.
Thomas checked the tether to make sure it was secure. He had grown up on farms and ranches. He knew about animals and birds, how to treat them.
“Go ahead and fly. You have my permission. You also have my permission to call out for your sister. Now, fly! Go and fly, Matthew.”
Matthew did as he was told. He couldn’t wait to get off the ground. With a sudden flourish he unfurled his wings. He ran as fast as he could away from the big oak until he figured he had enough speed for liftoff.
He flapped his wings hard and they appeared to unhinge. Then Matthew was airborne. He banked in a slow circle, drifting down a lazy vortex toward the rising sun.
He felt so free that for a few breathtaking seconds he almost forgot what he was doing, why he was up here.
But then he heard Uncle Thomas from his hiding place below. He hadn’t believed a word that had come out of Thomas’s mouth. He and the other guards were down there with rifles. They were a firing squad. They were killers, and they were going to shoot Max down as soon as she appeared.
“You call for her! I don’t hear you yet, Matthew!”
Matthew flew out as far away as he could from Thomas and his taunting voice and the sturdy tree he was bound to.
He was thinking:Can you see me, Max? Are you watching me fly? Are you nearby?
Matthew finally began to yell at the top of his lungs. “Max! Max! Max! Can you hear me?” he called. “Can you?”
And then Matthew raised the volume. He knew what he had to do to save Max. He began to screech even louder.
“Stay away. Stay far away from me. Max! It’s a trap! It’s Uncle Thomas and the others. Get away from here, Max! They have guns.”
Chapter 28
MAX WAS NOWHERE NEAR THE PLACE where her little brother was shouting his warnings. Another morning had broken. She’d made it through the night without being caught or torn into bite-sized pieces and eaten by a bear or a mountain cat.
Sh
e had a big breakfast and then played the CD-ROM game Tomb Raider II. She loved Lara Croft, the game’s heroine. She wanted to be Lara Croft.
She left the safe house where she was hiding at around seven-thirty in the morning. She wanted to explore.
Max peered through the interlaced branches and leaves of a bush covered with plump, ripe blueberries. She saw something that interested and terrified her at the same time. Her eyes blinked fast and hard a couple of times. Her pulse was racing just about off the charts.
She stared through the berry bushes at two little kids. They seemed a lot like her. Like her and Matthew, actually. The kids were obviously out on an early-morning walkabout in the woods, too. Had they already spotted her?
The girl was dressed in blue-jeaned overalls, a Red Dirt T-shirt, high-top sneakers. It was a pretty cool outfit. Her red hair was half caught in a purple scrunchie; the rest of it curled around her face. She was picking berries that matched the color of her funky nail polish.
The boy was probably four or five and reminded her of Matthew when he was that little. He was banging a rhythmic beat on an aluminum pail with a stick, singing a song Max had never heard before.
A-rumpty-rump-dump.
A-rumpty-rump-dump.
Max’s skin rippled. Her inner voice urged her to fly away, but she was stuck. She had to stay there. Anyway, she wanted to talk up a storm to the kids. She desperately, desperately needed help, and she had secrets to share. God, did she have huge secrets to tell. What would Lara Croft do at a time like this?
A-rumpty-rump-dump.
She was definitely scared, but what was she afraid of, she wondered. She was bigger than either of them. She was a whole lot stronger. No contest there. She had special gifts, and she was probably smarter, too. No big deal, but she was.
The little boy looked up from his pail drum and spotted her green eyes staring into his bright blue ones. He stumbled backward, shouting, “Hey! I see you! Hey! Who are you? Hey!”
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